


Hops and Lavender

by Anonymous



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Alternate Universe - Prison, Enemies to Lovers, M/M, Manipulation, Slow Burn, Violence, it's violent because it's goddamn prison
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-15 23:48:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29444349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Komaeda Nagito, nicknamed the "Lucky Arsonist," has finally been found by the police and is sent off to a prison in the middle of a desert.Now he just has to survive with a target painted on his back because of his weakness, assisting a new, too kind for her own good prisoner, and not gaining a reason to be hurt by the most notorious criminal in the entire prison.
Relationships: Hinata Hajime/Komaeda Nagito, Kamukura Izuru/Komaeda Nagito
Comments: 7
Kudos: 52
Collections: Anonymous





	1. Out of Luck

**Author's Note:**

> i've had this au in my head for awhile and now? now it's real, BAM

Japanese news outlets everywhere knew me better than I knew myself. They kept watch of me and picked up my mannerisms that I would never have noticed myself, from the way I walked on my heels to how my hair was an ambiguous color- but they knew there was brown. They knew that I hid myself away from the world when I had completed what I wanted rather than letting myself run away from the scene and that my health wasn’t quite up to par with most of our society.

But they would never know me.

They wouldn’t know me beyond what I had done. They wouldn’t know what was beneath the hood that obscured my head and the mask that covered my entire face. Nor could they know that I liked reading and taking walks for fresh air and that I was allergic to most types of tree pollen and that I was incredibly homosexual and aware of such.

The nickname they coined for me was “Lucky Arsonist.” I wasn’t particularly a criminal mastermind, but I managed to evade the eyes of authorities and my tracks were always perfectly covered- or had already become ash. But I’m not sure, even now, if I really am lucky. I was born into a world that was never mine to explore because I was alone. My parents died when I was too young to understand that they were really gone and my health declined significantly. But I had managed to evade eyes for so long and always managed to come out on top in difficult situations. 

At the time, I was still debating on whether my luck was good or bad, but I had convinced myself that it was bad when I was finally arrested for my various accounts of arson. I remember vividly each case- an abandoned shack behind a campsite, a bar that smelled like alcohol and tears, and an important building pertaining to the king- that one was risky, but the government was rather odd. I thought it might inspire hope throughout the kingdom, but instead, it landed me in a jail cell in the arid climate zone of a desert in the middle of nowhere and the building was rebuilt to be even better than the original.

It was the worst luck I had experienced, but I believed that there would be something hopeful here. There always was some sort of hope to be gained out of crushing despair and I knew that better than anyone else. 

But there was no despair or hope here. There were only tense silences and air that tasted of guilt and sweat and metal. Or maybe that was blood. I’ll never be sure.

Even from day one, I knew there was a special cell that nobody dared to get too close to, even when it was locked tight.

Rather than the minimalistic bars of the typical cells, this one was more like a box of metal and seemed unbearably cold. I remember thinking that my cold body was far from able to withstand the extreme temperatures that that prisoner faced, but at least they were alone.

My roommate at the time was always quiet, a permanent scent of smoke and saline emanating from his figure, and he always cried when he thought I was asleep. I felt bad for him, and even now, he must be rotting and still sad over what he had done.

When I woke up the morning after getting jailed, I remember awaking to the sounds of banging and screaming from that specific cell. The sounds were muffled, for he was locked tightly away in the metal box, but it was loud enough to reach my heart.

_ TELL THOSE BASTARDS TO FINISH THE DAMN JOB. _

I didn’t understand what he meant for the longest time. Maybe someone had attempted assassination on him and he had survived, but was suffering enough to want to die? Or maybe it was the opposite, and he had tried killing someone with a group but had been unable to complete the job. I wanted to know so badly.

But more than anything else, I wanted to understand. Understand the screams I heard and the scribbles on the outer wall of smiling faces and illegible words.

He was called Kamukura Izuru.


	2. My Third Roommate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Komaeda officially has his first encounter with the man in the metal cell and meets a small, kind girl called Nanami Chiaki.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is actually my first time on ao3 continuing a multi-chapter fic holy shit....
> 
> haha anyway enjoy the chapter! 😻❤️
> 
> tw for a violent scene

On the day of my arrival it became evident to me what exactly I should watch out for. 

Some prisons served food in a cafeteria and others in cells, but we were lucky enough to have a cafeteria. As far as cafeterias go, time spent in education as a reference point, our cafeteria was sort of small. A prison in the middle of nowhere shouldn’t be expected to have many residents, but it wasn’t enough to distance myself from trouble- that was the unsettling part.

Often, they kept more troublesome prisoners in their cells to eat, but I was always sent to the cafeteria. It was dusty, but less so than my cell, and the change of environment was appreciated.

The first day, I landed myself into quite a troublesome encounter.

I avoided the gaggle of giggling girls, the game of poker played with cigarettes and lighters on the table rather than chips representing money, the potentially dangerous people who wanted to be left alone, and all of the other horrifying sights that weren’t unfamiliar to a prison.

Weak die, strong live, it’s natural selection. Wholeheartedly, everyone else in the prison believed this and took others down to become “strong.” It wasn’t uncommon to see someone being beat up and the semi-circles that formed around fights. It wasn’t uncommon to be pulled into a fight unprovoked. 

The muscular man in the middle of the circle called out a warning to me, who had been pushed to the center by the crowd’s collective shifting.

“You lookin’ to start somethin’?”

“N-no, I just-”

“Ah, so you’re the newbie! We better teach you who’s boss around here.”

I barely had time to breathe before I felt a bare foot roughly meet my stomach, sending me back around a meter onto the cold, blood-stained cement floor. He grinned in triumph.

Before I could regain my footing and get away, he smiled a smile that made my skin crawl and picked me up off the floor. Grabbing the collar of the ugly orange jumpsuit I was wearing, he lifted me up to my feet and wrapped a hand around my neck.

“Only weaklings could tremble like that.” He stated. His cold glare into my eyes sent a rush of fear tingling through me, and I remember how desperately I willed myself to run, but I couldn’t breathe nor could I move an inch.

“Come now- try to stop me.” 

I so badly wanted to fight back, to put this bastard in his place that he deserved. But try as it may, a small dog will never become a big dog. The same is true of humans and talent. My aptitude fell in uncontrollable luck. As such, I couldn’t fight back if I tried.

I didn’t move, of course.

“Damn, look at this guy.” As if on cue, the small crowd around us started to laugh- at my weakness, if not, what else?

He didn’t say another word before he released my neck and immediately punched me in the face. My skin didn’t break, but I could feel the bruising before it appeared. I crumbled to the floor, my weak knees taking the brunt of the fall to the floor. 

When I crumbled to the ground, the crowd all went back to their tables and engaged in casual conversation. As if they hadn’t just seen something that would horrify most people. As if it didn’t even matter what had just happened moments ago.

People who were weak like me were taken advantage of here- it was a daily occurrence. Beaten without the ability to fight back, stolen from, and even worse. The sadistic nature of most of our fellow inmates let them relish in and find amusement in suffering, but it dissipated as soon as death came close.

I’m not sure why I didn’t die, but I didn’t, and I credit my luck. We never had a high population, so deaths were uncommon. However, they occurred just often enough to be exactly that. Uncommon.

As I coughed out blood, nobody dared to look at me. Unwilling to let themselves feel pity for me or simply my being too lowly to deserve more than a second glance. I didn’t get off the floor (as much as I couldn’t see the floor because of the layer of dust and dirt and how that bothered me) for the entire break.

My roommate dragged me back to our room. I was just his burden that he could have left laying there forever, but I was grateful. I tried to keep my breathing quiet as I drifted off that night and I let him cry as loudly as he wished. In the hopes that my gratitude would reach him.

I sort of liked my first roommate. I like to believe he cared at least a little.

But that was the only time he bothered to help me, though that could have been because the first time I was incapable of getting back to our cell on my own.

Despite my first day teaching me what to look out for, it was rare that Kamukura Izuru left his cell to eat. They let him into the cafeteria when he was on his best behavior (rare) so I had never witnessed what I was intended to watch out for when he entered the room.

I was still fairly new to the prison- the newest one there and the weakest of all. Nobody respected me enough to give me more than a passing glance unless they were looking at me hungrily- hungry to see me suffer, of course. 

Still, I couldn’t comprehend the uncanny silence when I entered the room that day. Those girls didn’t laugh over what should have been comedic to them (me slipping on spilled water- only then did I realize how useful those wet floor signs are) and no hands shifted at the poker table. Eerily silent, eerily still. I’d understand now, but I was so confused. If only I knew what was coming.

Footsteps were easy to memorize in groups. Though most of us had no shoes, one of the girls who giggled more than the others over dark topics wore boots with heels and her heels clicked when she approached. She had never come after me, but she was dangerous, so I kept my distance.

The large men, particularly the largest, always stomped everywhere as if to intimidate others more than their figure could. 

The injured limped, the people who didn’t care walked normally, and I walked as quietly as I could. Legs spread wide enough to not allow the fabric to rub against itself to make a noise, avoiding walking in areas that made uncanny amounts of noise when so much as took a step.

But these footsteps were new. Slow, methodical, but loud enough to pierce my ears in the complete silence. I remember comparing the sound to broken ice over a pond even if it sounded nothing like it- the same feeling of impending doom and submerging in fear, shivering in the attempt to survive but knowing you won’t. Drowning, learning the feeling of knowing you will die.

He turned his body away from me, long dark hair bursting from his figure. He said not a word, but watched. The person who gave us food gave him double the typical serving size. A normal serving size outside of the prison, but we were left hungry and only got as much as we liked if we stole from others.

(I was stolen from often of course.)

Out of fear, I looked down to the ground. It was never this silent for anyone else, not even the ones who were to be respected and feared at all costs.

Before I realized it, the tantalizing footsteps had grown far too close. I snapped my head up to meet his orange jumpsuit. I didn’t dare to look any higher than his chest. The footsteps has stopped. He stopped fully and intentionally in front of my table.

Nobody spoke, but I felt the eyes on me. Why had he stopped? Had I done something to make him angry?

He breathed out a sigh. “You’re new here. Just listen to what I say and we’re good.” 

I didn’t look up. But I shook my head in a nod.

“Well, it’s for the better. I wouldn’t want to have to bruise your cute little face.” I didn’t look up. He was just messing with me. I’d die if I looked up I’d die I’d die-

He slunk into the table beside mine, a thoughtful glance directed at the walls. Despite what I thought, the chatter didn’t pick up after he sat down. Everyone quietly ate their food. The girls didn’t give utterance to a giggle. No hands shifted to grab the winnings of a game of poker.

I hoped I had overestimated how dangerous he was, initially, but it was worse than I had thought. I had to learn and grow.

For now, I had avoided a run-in with him, but I had to learn what made him upset to continue avoiding issues.

I decided I would try to survive, no matter what I ended up wanting. 

* * *

In the prison, there was a system that ensured that everyone got only one roommate- not enough space in the tiny cells for the poor excuse of “beds,” or the lack of cells that they clearly experienced as a part of being in the middle of absolutely nowhere, I’m not sure, but you kept that roommate until it was necessary to change.

My first roommate, who I mentioned earlier, was a buff man- but not quite buff either. He was more muscular than me, but also had a pudgy face and a permanently sad expression stretched across his lips, stuck in his eyes that expressed perpetually dismal emotions. As a person, he wasn’t actually as bad as he could have been. Kept mostly to himself, responding in one word answers on the occasion when I tried to initiate conversations. However, as a roommate, he wasn’t the best. Guards commonly dropped cigarettes and lighters around the prison, and I suppose he needed to bury his endless sadness into some sort of addiction. It was always hard to breathe with him around. His sobbing kept me up on nights of blistering heat or unbeatable insomnia, but I at least appreciate his attempts to stay quiet during the day when he thought I was awake.

He was soon swapped out to a different cell, only about a month after I was there. I don’t know why he was swapped out, but I admit that I did miss him as soon as my new roommate arrived.

Significantly less did I enjoy my second roommate. He consistently budged into my personal space or took the bed that was supposed to be mine, claiming that he liked my scent the one time I asked. Evidently, he was a total creep. I’m not even sure if he knew I wasn’t a girl. It’s an uncommon mistake to make, but the way he got too close into my space and subsequently called people by homophobic slurs would make me think he wasn’t the best person. On occasion, he tried to coerce me into sexual favors, but that was the extent of it, which is the best thing I can say about him- that he didn’t take that opportunity and take advantage of my weak ability to fight back. Looking back, he was one of the more feared prisoners, so maybe sleeping with him would have given me a leg up- but also, knowing how he acted, it more likely would have caused me to fall even further down the ranks.

My third roommate was the only name I ever learned and the one I’ll never forget for as long as I live.

A girl called Nanami Chiaki.

She was small, standing at only one hundred sixty centimeters with pink hair that curled upwards at the ends that came down to around her shoulders. Her eyes, like her hair, were a dull pink that could have been bright once if they weren’t so drained of hope. I know she never felt despair, exactly- but she looked so hopeless. Not to mention she was incredibly cute- I, myself, would most definitely have fallen for her if I was interested in women.

The day we met was sometime in the median of October, around my fourth month of imprisonment and it was a tense sort of silence. But she looked more afraid than anything else. She didn’t hide malice or bad intent behind her hopeless eyes- it was simple fear that became evident every time I so much as moved.

So, I spoke.

“It’s okay….I won’t hurt you.” I tried to pour as much ingenuity into the words as possible to make her feel more at ease.

“I won’t make you do anything, but I want you to trust me.” 

She looked up with red eyes that were glassy from shimmering tears. She hadn’t so much as made a noise, but the dried tear stains on her face showed how much she was really torn up by being seen as the weakest one in the entire prison.

(Honestly, it was probably me, but misogynistic opinions obscure the truth.)

Maybe I only chose to get close to her because I knew she would be  _ killed _ if I let her remain weak, and I mean that literally. Or it was selfish indulgence in the idea of someone being seen as more frail than even I was. Or I was desperate, starved for connections with other humans that weren’t tracking me for crime.

In the moment, I contemplated whether or not I should hurt her. I didn’t want to. I wondered what had happened to this girl and what she had done and curiosity plagued me consistently. I never let this curiosity be expressed in words because I would be hurt. 

I held back from asking my first roommate what made him so stuck in a state of endless depression, stayed quiet about what the second did to me, didn’t speak a word when Kamukura entered the musty cafeteria.

Before she committed whatever crime she had committed to land herself in this hellish prison, I was considered the most weak person in the jail. I didn’t have enough muscle nor fat on my frame to have any sort of power. The terrible prison food didn’t help- rather, I was already a little bit underweight, but the food in the prison was disgusting and my appetite lessened further. With someone else who was seen as weaker, I could have taken advantage of her weakness to gain more respect from the other prisoners.

Nanami said nary a word, opting to stare down at the thin layer of foam on top of her higher bunk covered by an incredibly thin sheet that was covered in small, unintentional rips and holes from cigarette burns and smelled like everything bad and dust.

But I noticed she uncrossed her arms, letting her defense fall just a little. I decided at that moment that she had to be protected, and I, who was seen as only slightly above her in terms of survivability on the totem pole, would have to be the one who did so. 

Despite her silence, I chose to speak more- I might have been frantic, but I prefer to think that I was feeling hopeful. “It’s okay if you’re not comfortable- I’m not sure I would be either. But I promise I won’t hurt you.”

She turned her head a little in my direction, and I could see her eyes had dried, leaving a residual red in her eyes and face that made my heart ache further- pity. My head was wondering, wondering what had happened to make her feel so scared within the first hour of her arrival. But my heart supported her unconditionally, knowing better than to pry into something potentially sensitive.

I gave her the space she needed to feel better and spoke when I knew something was incredibly wrong. So, she stuck by me in the beginning because she trusted that I wasn’t just going to hurt her for status.

(I never mentioned that I had thought about it.)

Day one was difficult however, and I believe firmly that our feelings were mutual on this matter.

“Where do we sit?”

It was only her twenty-seventh question. I was glad to be helpful, but most of her questions could be inferred. I felt sort of bad for being annoyed with her. Maybe if I had the same opportunity to cling to someone in the beginning of my imprisonment, I would be no different.

“There.” I pointed to the empty table in the corner where I always sat. The unenticing white stain of something on the wall was around the same size as my head and helped my hair blend in. I’m not sure how much the stain contributed to it, but hardly ever was I bothered there.

Nanami ran, almost animatedly, to the corner table and took a seat against the wall, leaning forward from where she sat on the bench to hold her own face in her hands, eyes directed at me. She was so optimistic and I found myself wishing I could be just as optimistic in a place with no hope (if there was hope, it was nothing more than a mere shadow of the real thing.)

She was perfect in the way prisoners should not be, and I will never be half of what she thought of me, but I had the advantage of experience that could help her to some degree. The moment I sat down, she smiled a sweet smile that made my heart soften. I never thought about taking advantage of her  naiveté again.

“So...who’s that guy?” She pointed to a guy at the poker table and I laughed a little.

“I don’t know his name, but do NOT even try getting close to him!” The warning sounded friendly to even my own ears when I was laughing, and I realized Nanami was too. It was easier to laugh and laugh than face the world’s offering of fear.

So that’s what we did. Laugh and laugh away, laugh until lunchtime met its end.

But the silence grew uncanny once more and I covered her mouth, placing a finger over her lips to ensure that she didn’t make another noise. Kamukura was coming.

As much as I wanted to ignore it, the delusions of broken ice and drowning and shivering didn’t dissipate as I heard the crisp sounds of bare feet sticking to cold cement in the silence. 

Kamukura had already finished eating in his cell but was allowed into the cafeteria to do as he wished. The guards, too, were afraid of him, as I realized. I kept my thoughts silent as I never had when I was with Nanami- thoughts about never being safe from him if not even the guards would stop violence as such.

Admittedly, during free time, while he paid no attention to me outside of our first and only encounter, I saw him challenge nearly everyone to a fight. He never lost, no matter what, and a fresh brush of various bruises would cover his exposed skin. I never participated in fights outside of when I was forced to. But the guards never stopped anyone. I wasn’t even sure that they watched us because even if we got out, we were too far away from civilization to walk a length in the desert without dying.

Nanami whispered yet another question. “Is that Kamukura?” Her voice trembled with the words.

I could only nod in fear of breaking the silence.

“Just don’t speak loudly.” I muttered, keeping my voice audible enough so that she could hear but nobody else could. Or so I hoped.

I had been the newest prisoner since Nanami. We ran on barely enough income to support what we had and the food they fed us felt more like food covered in a dog’s slobber than something entirely healthy. Either way, we didn’t have very many people. So when Kamukura stopped at our table, I had no idea why.

“Well, it looks like the novices are sitting pretty.” He rolled his eyes a little, voice filled to the brim with annoyance.

“Who’s your friend here?” He looked at me. Not that I had to look up to know- his gaze bore the same heat as the various fires I had started. I didn’t say a word before Nanami could.

“I’m Nanami Chiaki.” She looked him straight into the eyes as she said it, breaking the tense silence as she bursted out of her seat and leaned toward him.

“Well, hey there. Welcome to our prison- just be sure to listen to me. No questioning. Okay?” Kamukura smiled- a rare sight.

I could tell Nanami didn’t like it too much, but she seemed to remember what I told her then.

“Okay.” She muttered, sitting back down, matching her gaze to meet mine- at the floor.

With that, Kamukura turned on his heel and walked away towards his empty table where nothing but bugs sat. Which he definitely wasn’t afraid of, I noticed, as he squashed one lingering beside his foot, and the room remained as silent as it had been.

It was only that night, when Nanami had fallen asleep in seconds and I laid awake for hours, that I remembered that his eyes were a brilliant shade of hazel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if kamukura....why eyes hazel?
> 
> comment below if you think we all should get married to hajime hinata

**Author's Note:**

> is this worth continuing?


End file.
